As far as she could see in the moonlight, no other gate was there to let her through, and the wall was too high and brittle to scale. She was about to give up and burrow into the nearest thicket when something caught her eye.
At first, she thought it was a crack in the wall. But as she scrambled the rock which the wall had been built on, she saw it was a sturdy, oxidized wire, likely a part of a lightning protection system. It seemed to be running all the way up to the battlements.
There was just enough room for her fingers between the wall and the wire, and she grasped the wire as if it were an icon. She knew that scaling the wall would make her a ridiculously easy target. And yet, a strong inner voice kept urging her up, up, up; and so she dug her toes into the wall and started to climb.
Halfway to the battlements, she put her feet on the large bolts that attached the wire to the wall, and she looked around. No signs of Varbanov and his flashlight.
The wire creaked somewhere above her head. Jasmin shuddered when she realized the system had been probably installed during Communist Czechoslovakia, an era that was infamous for botched projects and bad materials. She prayed that her weight wouldn’t rip the rusty bolts from the crumbling wall.
The fear made her go on. Stealing from her last reserves of strength, she managed to scale the fifteen or so more feet and climb over the battlements.
She sat down and tried to steady her galloping heart. How could Varbanov sniff her out again and again? The answer hit her just as a bolt of lightning would slam into the wire she’d just climbed. That arrogant cop at the Serbian-Hungarian border! He must’ve stuck a tracking device to one of her passport pages.
She pulled the passport out of her pocket and tilted it toward the moon. Indeed, a small tracking tag was pasted to page ten, just below the Republic of Serbia stamp. She was about to peel it off and throw it far away when she realized it was too late. The accursed yellow beam painted the wall below her with a pale glow. Clenching the flashlight between his teeth, Varbanov was climbing up the wire.
Jasmin scrambled up and looked around for a rock or a branch to knock him down. There were none, and so she began to run. Her heart went as cold as a coffin hinge when she saw the silhouettes of tall trees below her: the wall was only about four feet wide, and the crenellation was so dilapidated it hardly reached her knees. An especially forcible gust of wind could send her down to certain death.
Jasmin groaned when she saw a shadow of a partly crumbled turret growing in front of her, barring her way. She ran her hands over its rough wall and found no aperture: the turret’s roof had collapsed and blocked the passage. There was no way to climb over the turret. A deadly precipice yawned on left and right. And Varbanov had already reached the battlements.
THE DROP WAS TOO SHEER to survive. Yet she was determined to jump, as she would rather break her neck than be killed by Renard’s friend. For the first time since she’d seen Varbanov in Prague, and for the first time in her life, Jasmin was certain she was going to die.
Varbanov was just a few feet away from her. His tall silhouette stood out black and crisp behind the flashlight. The yellow beam was rising toward her head. So was the pistol. And this time, he was too close to miss.
Porcine squealing echoed throughout the sandstone realm. Sid had died to the haunted chorus of wild boars, and Jasmin no longer thought he’d been hallucinating. She only hoped the uncanny sounds—and the dreadful face of the monster Sid had drawn in the snow—wouldn’t accompany their reunion, if they were ever to meet somewhere on the other side.
She turned her back on the woods to face the silent bailey, which seemed a less dreadful place to die. Taking a deep breath, she got ready to jump. Then she heard a scream.
The flashlight plunged through the night, spinning and casting its yellow beam on the wall and the trees like a miniature flying saucer. The beam went off as the flashlight smashed against the ground. But the flashlight wasn’t the only thing to plummet.
She discerned nothing but a blurry black bundle in the moonlight, but the scream told her it was Varbanov. He must’ve lost his footing and dropped the flashlight. The scream grew weaker as he fell into the depths. His body slammed against the rock. His bones snapped and cracked like brushwood.
Jasmin stared down in disbelief. She was shaking so much she had to press her back against the turret so that she wouldn’t fall as well. The night was suddenly deadly silent. All she could hear was the fluttering of the wings of a startled bird.
THE LIGHT OF THE NEW day streamed weakly through a tear-shaped hole above her head and woke her up. Strong wind howled outside. Scattered clouds passed over the sun, making everything around her plunge into darkness and then brighten again.
Jasmin sat up and stared dumbly at the display of lights and shadows. It was like waking from an alcoholic stupor. Her head throbbed, her lips were parched, and her mind flapped around like a stranded fish as it tried to catch the swarming memories of the previous night. She recalled the chase and the body plummeting off the curtain wall. But what happened afterward?
She scanned the sandstone wall beside her and the low, arched ceiling above. At first, she thought she was in a cavern. Then she noticed that parts of the rugged wall had been chiseled and reinforced by large bricks. When she made out a narrow stone stairway that led up to the surface, she guessed she was in a vault or a crypt.
The tear-shaped hole yawned in the lower part of the ceiling, which protruded above the ground like a horseshoe. When she stood on her tiptoes and peered through the hole, she could see a crumbling keep, a dilapidated chapel, and four palaces standing among tall spruces about a hundred feet away. It had to be the bailey.
The sight triggered a strange memory. She recalled following a blurry shadow along the battlements, down a spiral staircase, and past the chapel.
“Was it just a dream?” she murmured as she sat back down. “But how did I end up here?”
“I led you here,” a voice whispered beside her. “But you’ll never know.”
Jasmin screamed in fright. She scanned the vault, but her eyes failed to register anyone around her.
“You can hear me?” The voice was stronger and laden with excitement.
Her eyes traveled around the vault. She screamed again when she suddenly spotted a silhouette of a man kneeling in front of her.
“You can see me, too?” the man asked in a bewildered voice.
Jasmin tried to get up, but her knees were so weak she only managed to shift a few inches backward.
“You can see me, too!” This time, it wasn’t a question, but a hoarse exclamation of joy. “Yes! You can really see me! And you can hear me as well! It’s a miracle, for I’m mute and invisible to most. Only a few people have seen me in centuries, and most of them ran away as soon as they did. You won’t run away? Oh, please tell me you won’t!”
The bewildered Jasmin only managed to shake her head. As far as she could see in the gloom, the man was about thirty. His long, tangled hair and beard made him look like a fakir. His clothes were nothing but a mass of filthy tatters. Obviously, so was his mind.
“It’s usually children who can sense my presence,” the man continued. He spoke fast and feverishly as if he’d really been choking on silence for ages. “And babies—babies always cry when I’m near. And dogs! They growl and bark at me all the time! I used to love dogs, but now I loathe them. Wild animals run away from me in panic, same as the handful of people who’ve seen me. You won’t run away, then? You really won’t?”
“No. I’m tired of running.”
“I know. But that man can’t hurt you now.”
The flashback of the falling body made her shudder. “So it was you up there last night?” she asked as she recalled the strange shadow.
His eyes opened wide in surprise. “You saw me there, too? I thought it was just some sort of instinct that commanded you to follow me down here.”
“I think I saw some blurry outline, but I really don’t know how I ended up here. Ac
tually, I can’t remember almost anything after the man’s fall. So what happened? Did you push him over?”
“I couldn’t have pushed him even if I’d tried, for my hands are like two plumes of smoke. I only crept up to him and blew into his ear. It wouldn’t work on most people, I think. Fortunately, this man was really sensitive, perhaps thanks to the darkness and his agitation. And so he lost his balance and fell over.”
Outside, another cloud blocked the sun. When it passed, specks of dust danced in the sunlight that poured into the vault. The ray reminded her of the beam of flashlight that had so often haunted her last night.
“I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” she said after a while. “How could I ever repay you?”
“Don’t worry . . . I didn’t do much.”
“But you did! I was about to jump down,” she said with a shudder.
He sighed and nodded. It seemed he’d realized as much.
“Thank you for saving my life,” she said. “I’ll never forget that.”
He gave her a shy smile, and she noticed that, although terribly gaunt and filthy, his face had strong, regular features she found quite pleasing. Jasmin wondered what he’d been before he’d lost his home and reason. He spoke Czech with a harsh accent that was hard to understand, and yet it seemed to be his native language. His intonation was much different from her father’s and from the young waiter’s in the restaurant yesterday.
“You saved my life, and I don’t even know your name,” she said. “I’m Jasmin.”
“And I’m Hrot.”
“That’s a nice name. I’ve never heard it—” Something about what she’d said made her pause. Had she really never heard the name before? It sounded somewhat familiar.
“The name was quite common in my tribe,” he said with a sad smile. “But I haven’t heard it for long centuries.”
Jasmin gave him a pitying look. What a shame that such a handsome young man should be so delusional.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asked.
Jasmin only stared at the ground.
“Everything I told you is true,” he said. Although it wasn’t much louder than the wind outside, his voice brimmed with confidence. “Don’t you see that my body isn’t made of bones and tissue and that my mind is no longer mine? I’m a man without a soul. I’m a man without a will. I am an empty shell. Even you said you had seen me as a mere shadow last night. And most people can’t do even that!
“Oh, I remember perfectly the last time someone saw me. Some twenty years ago it was; a little girl was visiting the castle with her parents. I tried to speak to her, but she started to tremble like a leaf and wail her head off. Her parents had no idea what had thrown her into such a fit, of course. A bee was buzzing around them, and they thought it had stung her. Her mother spun her around and lifted her arms and pulled her hair from her cheeks to find the sting mark, while her father chased the poor insect. It would have been amusing if it hadn’t been so tragic for me.”
Something about this story tugged on Jasmin’s memory as if she’d heard it before. Perhaps this poor madman had read the same ghost tale as she had.
The talk of parents made her wonder when she was going to see hers. It was about eight o’clock, and her plane was to leave at three. She could still make it, provided she managed to find the train station fast. She could . . . but she knew she wouldn’t. Leaving her unfortunate savior to his fate was out of the question. Jasmin was determined to clothe and feed him and find him professional help.
She shifted toward him to ask him whether he’d come with her. The tear-shaped hole was just above her head now. The sunlight made her squint.
Hrot gasped. He stared at her sunlit face with increasing astonishment. “Your eyes! That little girl had the same . . .”
His words trailed off. He crawled closer to her and leaned forward so that his nose nearly touched hers. His face had such a wild and yearning expression she feared he was going to assault her. That fear dragged her to her feet, spun her around, and pushed her up the crumbled stairway to the doorless exit.
“Please!” The voice that came from below was filled with enough despair to make her halt. “Please, don’t go away, Jasmin! Don’t you remember me?”
“What?” Jasmin turned around to face him. She stood on the top step, her back to the strong, sane sunshine. He’d walked to the bottom of the stairs, where the sun could never reach. “What are you talking about, Hrot? Please, calm down. You’re scaring me.”
A few sparrows alighted on the turfed ridge of the vault’s roof, hopping around and chattering. The breeze chased the scattered clouds around the sky. One of them smothered the sunshine.
Hrot made a few timid steps and stood in the middle of the stairway. As she watched his colorless rags flap in the draft, Jasmin realized she should have smelled his filthy skin down in the vault. But she never had. Tears seemed to have made two ruts in the filth on his cheeks. Yet his face was strangely blurred.
The wind chased the cloud away, and the shadows fled from the bailey. The sun poured its rays over the top half of the stairway. Hrot disappeared as soon as the sunshine alighted on his head and body.
Jasmin stumbled back and nearly fell. Gaping at the empty stairway, she finally realized he truly was an empty shell. Then the gates of her memory opened wide. She recalled skipping around this bailey, looking for an ice cream stand, and spotting this same man climbing these same stairs. The recollection was so vivid she felt it had been two weeks rather than two decades.
At that moment, the bailey began to echo with a dreadful grunting and squealing. It was as if the castle had turned into a giant slaughterhouse. A few moments later, another cloud obscured the sunshine, and Hrot came slowly back into view. The cacophony subsided as suddenly as it had started.
Hrot said, “I could tell you didn’t see me for a while. But you have heard those damned swine, haven’t you? Oh, Jasmin, I see that you want to run away. But you have nothing to fear—at least not from me, at least not for now.”
She only trembled on the top of the stairs, unsure whether to believe him. What should she believe? Was it she who had gone insane? She passed her trembling hand over her face and said, “I remember you.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” he exclaimed, climbing a few more steps. She noticed he tottered as if he were drunk or as if one of his legs were shorter than the other. “We seem to be tied by a strong and dreadful link, Jasmin. Rather than a coincidence, both of our meetings must’ve been predestined.”
Jasmin only nodded. Although he stood on the third stair, their eyes met at the same level. Hrot’s face was distorted as if she were looking at him through moving water. It made her feel dizzy. He stared at her eyes as though he were mesmerized. She felt close to fainting.
“The warden will come soon to let the tourists in,” he said. “And if he catches you here, and if he finds the body below the wall, you could be in trouble. But I know a secret way out of the bailey, and a safe place where we can talk. Come with me, Jasmin. I need to hear your story. And you need to hear mine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The afternoon found Jasmin and Hrot in a little cave under the castle, deep in conversation. She had told him all about Sid’s murder, and about how her quest for revenge had turned into a flight for her life.
Hrot had told her about the Emissary, the failed ritual, and of centuries spent within the cold shadows of the Ruins. “No earthly chains tie me up, Jasmin, and perhaps my face is still youthful—yet I am the world’s oldest and most wretched prisoner. The Emissary had maliciously transformed the protective circle into the wall of my eternal prison. If I ever breached it, he would drag me into a realm of eternal suffering. This cave is about two hundred steps from the moat. This is as far as I can ever venture.”
His silhouette was clearly visible in the murkiness of the cavern, and she saw him hang his head. A light breeze brought in the scent of pines. A bird chirped in one of the trees and made her look outside. For a second
, the sight of the woods and sandstone rocks made her feel as if she were somewhere in the midst of Alaskan woods, on a camping trip with Sid. Then she looked back at Hrot, and she wondered how her life could’ve crumbled into dust in only half a year.
“You were right when you said our meetings couldn’t have been a coincidence,” she said. “Maybe I was able to see you when I was little because I somehow . . . sensed that you’d save my life one day. And perhaps I can communicate with you now because you’ve really saved me from certain death.”
“Perhaps. And maybe you had so much will to live, and I had so much will to save you that I was able to spook your killer. I don’t know why I’m like air to most, while few others can sense my presence or even see and hear me. I can’t explain it because I don’t even know what I became. I’ve had four hundred years to ponder over it, and I still don’t know.
“All I know is that I’m constantly starving and exhausted, but I can neither eat nor sleep. I long to die but don’t have the luxury of death. I long to leave the Ruins but can’t set foot over the protective circle without inducing the Emissary to drag me into his realm.
“The worst thing is, the Emissary promised that one day, he’d come and take me with him in any case. I just don’t know when—and it drives me insane. All this is just a sick game for that monster. He’s put my mind through endless torment. And once my reason is gone, he’ll come for my body.”
“There must be a way out of this, Hrot!”
He shook his head. “I wish you were right, but . . .”
“There has to be,” Jasmin insisted. “And I’m willing to try anything. You’ve saved my life, and I want to save you.”
Hrot kept silent, his forehead furrowed with thoughts. “Nobody can save me,” he said at last. “I’m doomed. Anath and Felix tried to help me—and they met a horrible death. The goddess Krverah entered the Ruins that night, summoned by Anath, and even she proved weaker than the Emissary.”
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